The Archives

Excerpts from Electric Degeneration, Degenerate Press' semi-weekly e-zine, free and ad-free. A full episode contains sections for music reviews, upcoming events, blasphemy, classifieds, and anything else we feel like saying. If you'd like to subscribe just contact us.

You can surf the entire archive.

11/3/1999

Get your beverage of choice and flex that attention span, you're gonna need it.

"Eh. These monsters are as stupid as human beings!"
From Ghidra the Three Headed Monster vs. Godzilla

BLASPHEMY
My personal National Forest tirade grows like a cheap white pine
planted by the timber industry.
I went online to find some information about tree spiking, the
practice of driving nails into trees with the intent of wrecking
timber industry equipment. It turns out it's a FELONY. Does it seem
kinda funny that you can get busted on the grounds of destruction of
private property when doing no harm to the tree, possibly saving the
government millions if the timber industry gave up on clearcutting
(and destroying) the very property you tried to save?
If you're interested in the looting of the natural environment
there's a nice article online at http://sci-lab.onysd.wednet.edu/users/g98s46/library/woodwars.html
mostly about the Northwest, complete with stats and names and such. Last episode's tirade generated 99% compliments and only one dissenting view:

"I heard recently that over 90% of American land remains unsettled and unpopulated." degenerate GN

Well, yeah. I mean, how many square feet do you take up? What counts
as "populated", the area under your feet, your house, your house and
work? Roads? Golf courses?
I'd like to see a figure that includes only "undeveloped", WITHOUT
including all those thousands of acres paper companies own that,
though "unpopulated", have been razed and replanted with pine.
WITHOUT including all the national forests. Without farms.
I spend a lot of time in national forests. At no point can you find
an acre that has not been replanted with foreign trees, or is
cigarette butt or beer can free. Every visit I walk out with two bags
full of garbage. I can go to the same spot a week later and pull out
two more, ad infinitum. Yet the forest service wants to insist there
be roads into these areas for easy access? And that's GOOD for the
health of the forest?!?
Good for the health of the director's fuckin' wallet, maybe. Damn
good for the health of the timber industry. But that forest was just
fine before it was "managed."

EAR PLUGS
Friday we hit Northside Tavern, the only real juke joint in town,
early. The parking lot was already overflowing, cars parked up and
down the street, a bad sign. Inside it was crowded but not
intolerable. Slim Fatz and John McCormic were on stage, Slim playing
a mean slide guitar, John playing a chicken coop covered with bones
and cowbells. Yep, a chicken coop. He beat on various parts of it
with antlers and femurs to keep the beat. It was a damn fine. Slim stopped between songs and said "Damn, there's some hotties here
to-night!" He was right, the joint was packed with hot, horny girls.
Hot because the place was wall to wall. Horny, literally. A couple of
gilrs were getting a jump on halloween, one as a devil, another as a
unicorn. I sat next to Cora Mae Byrant, across from Frank Edwards and
enjoyed the show.
After a short break Danny Mudcat and crew got on stage. A bongo
player made it feel a bit Phishy but he soon switched to washboard
for Cajun spice. A sax player piped in, a really cute female singer
joined in (I've seen her somewhere before) and the whole thing
followed Danny's lead on a beat-up acoustic that looked like it
could'a been salvaged from the Salvation Army up the street. Danny
had the guitar hooked to a radio mic so he could get out in the
crowd, up on the tables, out the front door, in the back door, onto
the bar and anywhere else he could fit in that cramped place. (How on
earth he gets such an electric sound out of that acoustic I'd like to
know.) It was a hell of a show. A little country, a little groove
rock momentarily lapsing into some white boy rap, zydeco, and a whole
pot of blues boiled and bubbled for hours. Exactly what I'd wanted to
see at Rialito last week instead of the tame, sterile show (for 7
times the cover charge!) After midnight the band took a break and the
place cleared out a bit but by the time they started back up a whole
new crowd had shown up and it was packed again, everyone sweatin' and
swingin'. I called it quits around 2 and the joint was showing no
signs of slowing down. A fucking super show.
On my way out I grabbed the CD, only to be charged FIFTEEN bucks for
it! Sheesh!! It's damn good (though I wish the guitar was mixed a
little louder) but I'm sure it sells for less at the corner store. Saturday we hit Dottie's just in time for a couple of KISS covers by
Molly Pitts and company. If there's anyone in this town that looks
better in black leather pants I wanna know. The music wasn't bad,
particularly for an act that hadn't played together before. AC/DC covers by "the bearded lady." Apparently the band's bassist
skipped out of the gig so a guy in drag sang and played guitar and a
man in a Scream mask played drums. They also had been misinformed
that it was an Alice Cooper battle o' the bands so they'd only
briefly rehearsed.
It was terrible, in a comical way. I was beginning to worry that this
might be a "miss" for a serious of shows that's always hit or miss.
But then a horde of Gene Simmons impersonators climbed on stage,
"Usually we're the Fabulous Lounge Punks, tonight we're Gene's
Addiction!" shouted Bizarro Gene in white-on-black makeup with a
white wig. He and 70's Gene belted out a rousing round of KISS tunes
while hurling cereal and confetti into the small but growing crowd. Kenny Howes followed doing some excellent AC/DC. (Of the two bands I
personally prefer to listen to AC/DC but everyone obviously prefered
to perform as KISS.)
The Flinch followed in near-full KISS attire and did a long,
incredible set. If you squinted you could almost believe KISS
themselves had come to Dottie's as part of some community service
program or something. They even had the stage moves down. Excellent. A couple of degenerates showed up to catch the last two songs and
told us of a huge party around the corner. We wound through
cabbagetown to the other side of the tracks and found a massive
warehouse party with lots of cool costumes and a few familiar faces
(the two girls in Atlanta I have crushes on were both there and gave
me the usual ice cold shoulders.) But we arrived as they were emtying
the last bottle of champagne out of a coffin and the keg was dead.
Empty liquor bottles covered the kitchen and folks were beginning to
realized there was not a drop to drink. We mingled a bit but heard
about another party down in Cabbagetown and hit the road. That party,
too, had just finished off the last of the supplies and everyone was
scattering. Over at the Star Bar they were just closing up shop so we
finally got the hint and went home.
Sunday we kicked things off at the Mexican Center for the Dia de
Muertos fest. They had some cool arts and crafts and some damn fine
food. The altars to the dead were excellent (ones to Frido Kahlo and
Diego Rivera were a personal faves.)
We dosed up on coffee, got our costumes together and hit Echo Lounge
just as the wedding party was headed back inside for photos. Jim was
done up in his usual Victorian splendor, Ginger in a stunning Vegas
showgirl getup, complete with a 3 foot feather headpiece. The joint
was packed wall to wall, every single person in costume. And what
costumes! In all my years of costume balls and contests and Halloween
parties none topped last night. Everywhere you looked there was a
hilarious, clever or amazing costume. To top it off there was a
Southern buffet that would satisfy a crowd twice as large (collards,
black eyed peas, barbecue, okra, mac & cheese, the works.) And then
there was the music!
(My only complaint for the night is the usual of The Echo - FIX THE
FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING DAMMIT.)
Kingsized kicked off the musical entertainment. They're pretty much
The Robustos with Mike in the lead position and a different music
focus, but there's really only one phrase I can use to describe 'em -
goddamn awesome. And yes, they were all in costume too.
Between acts the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus entertained the crowd with
street performance, sometimes of a perverse bent but always outright
beautiful.
Drive By Truckers got up and kicked off with Alice Cooper's "Welcome
To My Nightmare." Perfect for the scene. Patterson whipped off his
Elvis sunglasses to reveal the Alice makeup and they charged into a
whole set of Alice greatest hits done full blast and dead on. I think
they tossed in one, maybe two Truckers tunes before wrapping up with
a killer "18."
I chatted with the walking wounded of Truckadelic. Apparently Jim's
bachelor party was a hell of a party (sounded much like a Degenerate
Press function - guns and folks jumping through a bonfire.) Billie
was on crutches with a broken ankle, John's left arm was strapped to
his chest with a broken collarbone.
Fiend Without a Face followed. (Or were they before DBT? I dunno,
it's all a fantastic blur the next morning.) Their
guitar-stream-of-consciousness is beginning to grow on me. Once you
get past the fact that you're not supposed to understand any of the
noise you'd normally call "lyrics" it's a fantastic celebration of
the electric guitar. The lead singer talked about his love for the
newlyweds, "Now I just call them Jimger."
More Bindlestiff, more drinks, more costumes and more fun later it's
The Immortal Lee
County Killers, with Chet from the Quadrajets on guitar and a guy in
a Fulton Co. Police getup on drums. You'd think it would be a minimal
sound but between the two of 'em it's a fierce attack on all fronts.
Brutal guitar work.
After an incredible erotic fire-eating display by the Cirkus Super
X-13 charged into their killer metal. Unfortunately with the holiday
falling on a Sunday this year I didn't get to stick around for the
rest of the show. (Working for a living sucks.)
So many costumes caught my eye it's impossible to pick a fave but
there were two incidents that stood out - a big Mickey Mouse dancing
with one of the Satan's cheerleading squad (done up in black with a
red 666 across her chest.) And later a giant Piggly Wiggly pig
moshing with Barney the dinosaur. Eventually both of them, in full
big-head fur-covered costumes, collapsed on the floor from heat
exhaustion and watching them pull their heads off and gasp for air
was oddly hilarious.

Contact Degenerate Press

All content on this site is owned by Degenerate Press and cannot be used without our permission. We have lawyers for friends with nothing better to do than cause trouble (no kidding), so play nice. Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved